In the mean time, lots of other stuff has been happening. Leo, apparently thoroughly impressed with his cousin Conner’s skills at walking, just decided after Easter was when he would stand up from now on. He can now walk around the house, but his butt still does some slamming into the floor. Leo has also increased his words and I think “Daddy” is finally getting a rest. At this point he’s saying, daddy, mommy, Will, hank, dog, ball, uh-oh, hi, bye, various animal sounds (he barks like Hank), and I am sure a few more I’ve forgotten.

I’ve finished a few more projects out in the shop too. The first is our tv stand. I think I mentioned it in the last post. It isn’t exaclty 100% done, but it is done “enough” to get it out of the shop. I still need to add doors to either side and then add the back to those same areas. It would also probably look a lot better without a big tube tv on it, but tv just isn’t a priority in this house.

The next project is a coffee table for the living room. A long time ago, I saw restoration hardware had these reconditioned factory carts turned coffee tables for, I think, around $900. The carts are cheap if you can find them, so their price must include some substantial profit margin. Either way, I thought it looked cool and showed it to Angie, she thought it looked cool too. I finally came up with a cart (or 3) and picked the best one to sand down and oil. I the cast iron was lightly cleaned and clear coated to prevent further rust. It was actually a relatively quick project. Just another big space sucker I am happy to have out of the shop. Most importantly, I didn’t spend a ton of time on it, so the first time Will takes something and starts digging at one of the holes, I won’t be too mad.

As far as cars go, let me just say that if safety latch on your hood isn’t working, I highly recommend you address the issue.

William has been growing like a weed. Although William eats about as much as Leo does, he has sprung up a few inches and his feet continue to out grow shoes about every other month. He got his name on the board 3 times last week for goofing off in school, so he is no longer the sweet and innocent kid a few years ago. On the flip side, he doesn’t wet the bed, sleeps very well, can dress himself, can help cook, and let’s Hank in and out of the house, so he is pretty darn useful anymore.

Angie has been on nights for the last week and a half and by my count has 17 nights left. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it still takes a long time to chug through 5 weeks of it. I think this round is going much more smoothly than the last go round, mainly because Leo is older and no longer needing to eat in the middle of the night. I think it is also going pretty well for Angie too, at least she is getting home at a reasonable time in the morning.

Other than that, it seems like spring is finally coming. We might be getting a dusting of snow, but April is a week away so the cold won’t last much longer. I went for my first and only outdoor ride a few weeks ago in Columbus. There are some great hills down there and the traffic is much lighter than Indy, but I realized my helmet has seen better days. Many, many moons ago a certain puppy (Hank) tore all the padding out of my helmet. I rode with it like that for basically 8 years. I am not even sure the helmets are meant to be used for 8 years. I can certainly see there is fading all over it and wouldn’t be surprised if some of the foam has been compromised, so I bought myself a new helmet and some socks. It looks uber cool (does any helmet look cool?) and matches the bike, so hopefully I look a little less dorky in my spandex shorts.

Out in the shop, I finally got my 12″ Fay and Egan Jointer up and running. It took some more precise measurements to setup than what I expected so the process was a little longer. In the end, it is a smooth running machine. Along with the jointer, I have been working on building a TV stand for out living room. I finally to a point of adding the finish, so hopefully it will be ready for prime time shortly. It is replacing a TV stand Angie bought her freshman year at IU. I can’t remember what happened to it our 2nd through 4th years of college, but it reappeared when we moved to MN and we’ve been using it ever since. It looks rather funny with the large tube tv sitting on it now in this big living room. It does nothing to hide the wires (now with all the networking crap by the tv the wires have doubled) and it seems to be a kid magnet. The stand I am building will be substantial to say the least. It sucks up all the free room in the shop and with the top on, I am guessing it weights well over 100 lbs. It will be stained the same dark chocolate color that I used on the Arts and Crafts bookshelf, so it will definitely have some visual weight to it.

I have been busy out in the shop making furniture and generally enjoying not walking through a half finished basement. Angie has kept busy with residency, but has been enjoying having the last week of the year off. Will made it through one Christmas and is gearing up for the next one in a few days and poor Leo is recovering from having tubes put in his ears early this morning.

I am not even going to attempt to recount the prior months here, but I am going to list out my resolutions for ’10:

1) Get back in shape. I know I say this along with about 1 billion other people, but I have given up all soda (for months now), which was phase one, now it is time to kick in the exercise again. I am not sure I will reach my wedding weight when I was riding 150 miles a week, but I’d like to get half way there.
2) Go camping. This was a summer goal, but poor planning on our part never made it happen. Leo will be a bit older, so it might be more fun for the whole family.
3) Post to niblet at least once a month (we actually do rely on it heavily when we’re trying to figure out what we did with Will at certain ages).
4) From Angie: Try more ethnic foods (count this one as a failure from the start).

So there we go, some easy goals. I’d also like to add, complete all the tool projects in the shop, build all the furniture I have planned and make a billion dollars, but I am trying to be realistic.

And I am going to be so happy he stops asking me when it will be done.

]]> http://niblet.us/?feed=rss2&p=488 0 http://niblet.us/?p=486 http://niblet.us/?p=486#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:23:43 +0000 admin http://niblet.us/?p=486 I’ve been meaning to post this forever.  Here it is:

Outdoor Morris Chair

http://niblet.us/?page_id=451&g2_itemId=10463

Now back to Leo…  If you ever watch Will when he was younger and experienced some of his…  difficulties, and you can imagine a baby that is the exact opposite of that, then you have Leo.  Everything from their eyes to their affinity (or lack thereof) for the bottle are on opposite sides of the scale.  We have videos of Will crying because he couldn’t crawl when he wanted to.  Leo would quietly resign himself to trying again.  Will would scream bloody murder if he was laid down for a nap, Leo simply turns his head and goes to sleep (although neither have slept alone all that well until after age 1).  Leo laughs and smiles, a lot, he is quite simply a happy baby.

I am not sure how I would have held up had they come in reverse order.  In some ways, we thought if we survived Will, we can handle anything.  Even to this day William is stubborn as a mule and generally goes to the beat of his own drum (he went to school today for a bike race and wore his helmet, even when all the kids stared at him, he was content to wear it).  I am very excited to see Leo’s personality come out more and more as he gets ever so close to speaking.  He flaps his arms and makes all kinds of noises, but no real words (in moments of duress and despair, he will say mum mum, but I think that just comes out).

There is some speculation as to the final color of Leo’s hair too.  On some days it is definitely orange/red color and others I swear it will darken up and look more like mine (which has all kinds of colors, seriously ask people that cut my hair).  He is crawling too.  He went from a belly scoot to a full fledged crawl in a number of days.  He can roll from front to back, but gets suck on his back and he can sit up without assistance too.  He still seems to struggle with eating solid foods.  He either really hates the taste of everything (must be a Beale!) or he just doesn’t get the whole spoon thing.  In short, he is growing up rather quickly.

I can only imagine what its going to be like when Leo is old enough to run around with Will and come out to the shop with me.  Switching back to Will, he has finally gotten the hang of potty training, although the accidents still happen.  Nine times out of ten, accidents happen because he is stubborn and doesn’t listen to me when I tell him to go try.  But what do I know, right?  I am just his dad.

A note to facebook readers:  Facebook changed the way they post things and when I linked www.niblet.us to my facebook page it never posted a news feed, but apparently it does now***.  Just be aware that for whatever reason, the photos in the posting don’t come through the news feed, so to get the full effect, you have to go to www.niblet.us, should you care to.

***I’d prefer to post discreetly and not spam the hell out of everyone (which is basically what the facebook news feed is), but the link is convenient for a few people.  It does worry me that my high school English teacher has the possibility of reading my horrific grammar and punctuation, but rest assured Mrs. B, I am much better at giving speeches.

niblet.us

So after the move to IN, niblet.us hit some road blocks.  I bought a new wireless router and the connection to the server would go down 2-3 times per day and only a power cycle of the router would fix the problem.  So I returned the router and bought a different brand and that one seemed to grab a new IP address every night (for the none techies, lets just say it causes issues too).  So while talking about all of this with Angie, she re-iterated she would be sorely disappointed if something happened to niblet.us.  That comment finally pushed me over the edge to move the site over to a hosted service.

So after a long drawn out process, niblet.us was moved.  Uploading the 6000 photos took some time and getting everything setup correctly just added more time.  I finally got the major things right, but there are still numerous smaller things that I will try to tweak over time.  I don’t like the color of the links in the photos section and all photos that were in the blogs have to be relinked.  Not a big deal, but it will take some scrubbing.  Nevertheless, it is close enough now.

The House

Well obviously we’re in a new house now too.  We didn’t buy it as we were short of time to look for a house and at the time, our St Paul house had no hope of selling.  In the end, it is not a bad house.  It is much larger and has a huge yard which takes me about 4-5x to mow than the old yard.  Will has a real room now and my office is in Leo’s room (he’s rarely in it anyway).  Angie and I even have a half bath off the bedroom which I have pretty much claimed as my own.

We were given a nice swing set for the backyard and so far that is the highlight for Will.  Although he claims this house has too many closets and he doesn’t like it, I think he’d miss his swing if we left for too long.  Angie did all the painting in the house so when I eventually upload some photos, you’ll see it (I have to go through a process of re-arranging the albums as The House isn’t THE House anymore).  I still have numerous things laying around that I think Angie wants me to hang up, but she is too busy working nights to ask anymore.  There are also still boxes sitting around that need emptied or thrown out, so officially, we haven’t finished unpacking.

The Jobs

I can put jobs in the plural form now as Angie has officially started her residency.  The downside is she started on nights in the ICU.  Not fun for her or the family, but we only have two nights left and then she’ll switch back to days.  I’ve been with the boys at night and during the weekends and with some help from the family the time with them hasn’t been too stressful.  Bedtime is usually the most difficult as Will becomes very needed and usually has to go to the bathroom, have a story read, have toys found for him, and generally stays up too late playing in his bed.

As for me, I left 3M at the end of May.  It was weird.  I heard the door click and suddenly, I felt the weight of the decision.  I realized I would never walk in those doors again and when I saw my house again it would likely be for the last time.  I went home, checked every inch of the house and walked out another door.  We signed our papers and before 4 o’clock we were on the road leaving MN for the last time.  Every beginning has an ending and every ending brings another beginning.  For me, that beginning is Alliance Cost Containment.  The whole change was a big leap for me, but so far I am very glad I did it.  I am really looking forward to the work I will be doing.

Misc.

So our new house is much like most of Indy and there aren’t a lot of sidewalks to walk on and certainly the road is busy enough to keep a lot of cycling out of my mind.

My new shop is tiny, but I have managed to cram even more machines in (which were the only things that caused the move to be any real issue).

I am really enjoying being so close to family and friends, but I do miss some people from MN.  I also miss having the Menards 3 miles away and knowing exactly where I could find anything in the local Target.

I am happy to know I can have Steak n Shake anytime I want, but Texas Roadhouse excitement quickly wore off for me.

There is a Famous Dave’s here, but it seems to suck compared to its MN counterparts.

There are some pretty cool parks around us, but nothing like the Como Zoo and Como lake.

One of our neighbors made us an excellent peach pie, but they are older and I am not sure if they have any kids.  Our other neighbor is really old.  A vast change from our MN neighbors.

I kind of like not having to work on a house or look at all my unfinished work.

Leo is almost crawling.  He has the leg thing down, but hasn’t figured out how to move his arms with his legs.

Since we won’t be away from our house for a week this Christmas, we will probably get a real tree this year.

This house has issues with ants.

Indy is kind of behind with the whole recycling thing.

Although I hound Angie about it all the time, I think the house does look nicer with paint.

We don’t have enough furniture to fill this house, so I am really eager to make a few things to fill the holes.

That’s it, I am calling it a post.  Thanks for reading.

Will turned 3.  We hit the local Chucky Cheese (which I consistently referred to as Noble Roman’s and Showbiz Pizza) and Will got his much talked about “Shark Cake” (the sharks on the cake are “eating” Nemo gummy snacks).  He seemed to enjoy the cake, but I think he was more excited to get the Lego Sharks off the cake.

Somewhere along the way we sold the house.  I think we signed the papers in late April, and the house was off the market after about 2.5 months.  Since we’re closing the day we’re moving back to Indiana, the timing couldn’t be better.  As the closing date gets closer, I am realizing how much I am going to miss the house.  Although, reality would have dictated a move (or a really large project) in a few years anyway.  On the bright side, I am getting out before any major repairs are needed.

Angie is now an official med school graduate.  It seems like ages ago when we first discussed her going to med school and she has accomplished her goal and then some.  On the route of becoming a Dr, she became a catholic (not an easy task), married me (not an easy task), and had two boys (really not an easy task).  She marvels me with all that she accomplishes and sometimes I wonder why she settled for a guy who procrastinates blog posts.

Speaking of me, I stood and watched Will put his hand down on the oven’s burner.  We were making scrambled eggs and I pulled the pan to dump the eggs.  He leaned in to see and minutes later his hand was a blistered mess.  The Dr (not Angie) said he had 2nd degree burns all over his hand.  The major spots were his finger tips, all down his ring finger, the heal of his hand, and his thumb.  At this point the blisters are starting to come off which is causing him to slightly freak out.  I will take that little bit of freaking out over listening to him in the back of the car clutching his hand saying “owie, owie, it hurts!”  That was after the Dr visit when they wrapped his hand and he couldn’t ice it down anymore.  The Motrin kicked in not long after that and he did pretty well the rest of the day.

Then we had Mother’s Day last weekend.  Angie painted some pottery to commemorate our time in Minnesota.  Since it was rather pricey stuff, Will painted a leaf and I watched Leo.  The pottery has finished firing, so I will have to get some photos up of the finished plate and leaf.

That took me weeks to get out.  Maybe things will change when I am unemployed in the coming weeks.*

*okay, I am not really unemployed, but I won’t be going into an office anymore.